at st. mary's 17

siderable outfit of law books. Books bearing
their autographs are met with today.

The references in the records to the procedure
followed in the early seventeenth century appeals
to the Governor and Council, while brief, are suf-
ficient to show a close adherence to the established
forms of procedure on writs of error in the House
of Lords. There was, first, the writ of error di-
recting the transmission of the record of the case
by the Provincial Court to the Governor and
Council, an assignment of errors, and a writ of
scire facias ad audiendum errores, which was
given the full Latin title, directing the sheriff of
the proper county to make known to the defendant
in error that the writ was issued and the errors as-
signed would be heard.³³ Plea, hearing and judg-
ment followed in regular course. All the writs
were issued in English. So far as the records have
disclosed no writs were ever issued in the original
Latin in this province, although in England except
for a short time during the Commonwealth the
Latin forms were continued in use until 1731.³⁴
This is one of the instances of the exercise of the
freedom which distance and change of horizons
brought, opening the way to adaptations of prac-
tice prevented by habits at home.

A complete study of peculiar adaptations of
practice in early Maryland is beyond the scope of
this work, but three more instances may be not ir-

33. The writ of scire facias ad audiendum err ores was then becom-
ing obsolete in England. Macqueen, Appellate Jurisdiction of
House of Lords, 408. It survived in use for a long while in
Maryland.

34. Stat. 4 Geo. II, c. 26.